Apple on Monday said demand for the iPad 2 during its first weekend on sale was “amazing.”

[ad#Google Adsense 300x250 in story]“Demand for the next generation iPad 2 has been amazing,” Apple spokesperson Trudy Muller, told The Loop. “We are working hard to get iPad 2 into the hands of every customer who wants one as quickly as possible.”

Apple would not say exactly how many iPad 2s were sold over the weekend.

The iPad 2 went on sale at 5:00 pm local time on Friday and by the end of the weekend, there wasn’t an iPad 2 to be found anywhere in the country, according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster.

Other interesting notes from Munster’s checks showed that 70 percent of iPad 2 buyers were new to the iPad. In addition, the split between Mac (51%) owners and PC (49%) owners was almost even.

Munster also found that of the people buying an iPad 2, 47 percent purchased a 3G model and 41 percent were buying the 32GB model.

http://twitter.com/Moeskido Moeskido

In recent years, Munster’s gotten a bit whimsical in his projections of Apple’s likely intentions, but I can’t recall ever hearing of another analyst who did his own consumer surveys at retail locations.

http://twitter.com/Jawcl Jacob Wilson

If the demand is so amazing why doesn’t the stock meet that same term?

Dimik

You can’t predetermine exactly how many you will need….. the first iPad took weeks to sell out completely.

Kdimmig82

ALSO….. Last year there were multiple suicides of the staff who worked in the iPad development plants due to the overwhelming workload.

Why don’t we all just sit back and be a little less demanding.

http://twitter.com/RASTERMAN RASTERMAN

What? Please clarify.

Anonymous

I could not believe the lines I saw in NYC on Friday. They are far bigger than the first iPad. I’ve never seen this kind of wait for a tech product, even the iPhone. The last time I saw these lines were for the original Star Wars. Here is link for an example (it was 4 blocks long!):

After seeing this, I believe that the average person has seen the first PC they want to use instead of having to use. Nice scoop on getting Trudy Muller, Jim.

http://twitter.com/tmadel tmadel

I think the key question is how many units actually sold. My local Best Buy only had 20 units. The Wal-mart 1 (yes ONE) unit. Demand is definitely high, but I believe there may be some credence to the rumours of a supply problem.

Anonymous

The Apple stores had at least a few hundred (judging from how many they were able to serve in line). Don’t forget they also took a ton of ore-orders over the internet starting at 1am PST.

Yes Best Buys and WalMarts (and Targets!) had more limited stock, but consider how many of those stores there are around the U.S. and they all sold out…

http://www.secretsushi.com/ Adam Helweh

All other retailers who were selling the iPad had between 10-20 unites only. I was at one of the most popular stores in the bay area at the Valley Fair mall and I was easily between the 400-500 person mark in line. I am sure I barely got one, but there were still 200 folks behind us. I imagine that each Apple store had between 300-1000 units on hand depending on the size of the store. Remember that each person could buy up to 2 units. I was extremely surprised to see just how many people were in line. I think those who had a chance to play with a friend’s 1st generation iPad decided to take the plunge when they heard the new one came out.

http://joostschuur.com Joost Schuur

Stock market, not inventory stock. It was up to 356 earlier this morning, but now it’s actually slightly below Friday closing, at 351.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_DZ22GVXCEBJGQXUGO4VWYMYFVE David Preston

Just might have something to do with the horrible events in Japan…

https://me.yahoo.com/a/qJDryvoEhIjGtA2dj4aHrLkq7FQfZ16q0g--#47896 The Cappy

Tremendous demand for iPad 2 is probably built into the stock price already. If the demand exceeds expectations, stock price will go up. But expectations for Apple are stratospheric. It’s hard to exceed expectations these days.

Anonymous

Wasn’t it reported weeks ago that Apple had manufactured only about 500,000 due to production problems? Of course they’re sold out. Apple probably didn’t have enough to do a proper launch, but perhaps wanted to get the iPad 2 out to beat the other tablets that are coming out. If there was no competition, Apple probably would have waited until the end of April to launch so that they’d have built up significant inventory to meet demand. Also, I’d rather wait to buy from the second batch produced so that they’d have gotten the kinks out. Just like waffles.

S.Mulji

I can understand why, due to competition, Apple didn’t do a “proper” launch but I still feel it was a bit aggressive. Even if they did an April 1 launch for North America, with a March 25 pre-order date, and then an April 29, International launch with an April 22, pre-order date, the competition still wouldn’t have caught up.

Plus there would be more stock to supply those waiting in line which doesn’t leave as bad a taste in customers’ mouthes.

Anonymous

You also have to take into account the winding down of the iPad 1 line. These decisions have to be made months in advance and you have to coordinate the end of one version with the beginning of the next.

S.Mulji

Good point.

Anonymous

Obviously any rumoured production problems have nothing to do with Apple selling out, it’s just incredibly high demand.

Otherwise the mocking of rumours about production problems before launch by certain Apple pundits would look a bit silly.

Anonymous

If they sold out then the fact that 47 percent purchased a 3g model simply means that 47 percent of the machines produced were 3g models, not that 47 percent of buyers wanted a 3g model.

Anonymous

When you’re polling people in line as to what they want to buy vs. what they actually got, the figure is a true measure of what the demand is – remember not everyone got what they wanted (as the 3G models seemed to be in more limited supply initially).

Anonymous

Read what I said and read exactly what the article said. It does not say “wanted to purchase” it says “purchased.” I agree that not everybody got what they wanted, that was my point.

Anonymous

@John_Harrison

That’s not entirely accurate. The poll was done in New York and Minneapolis of buyers, nowhere else so it’s a rough estimate, a sample of those places. Due to how polling is done, and the resources available to the polling team, it could have a thin margin of error, say 5% or be actually way off, unlikely but still possible.

Anonymous

I agree, but the point remains. If you are basing the polling on what was purchased you are simply seeing what was produced given that everything that was produced was purchased. You are not seeing demand for different models, which is what you would be measuring if none of the models had sold out.

Player_16

“…As you heard, our ‘product’ was quite aggressive … Then, in terms of ‘purchased’, we also believe it was quite smooth.” Is that what you mean?

This selling out in a day and 3-4 week ship times is getting a little irritating. It’s about d%$n time Apple learns to anticipate the demand and produce enough for launch. Apple is still stuck in its PC days when it made a few million Macs for few million people. This “we didn’t expect such high demand” “we are amazed by iPad2 demand” is not cute. You are the only real player in the market Apple — it’s not that hard to see!

Michael

So you’re saying Apple should have made everyone wait a few more weeks? That would be better how? At least there are iPads in people’s hands NOW! Yes, some people will have to wait for more iPads to ship, but how is that any different from waiting for an initial release?

Austinnate

They arent sold out here in Austin TX. Apple has set up a temp store at 522 Congress. I work for FedEx and we delivered over 200 boxes of ipads today. Each box contains 5 ipads

Thesoreass

Steve Jobs pooped today It was described as soft, light brown and AMAZING.

5122522

Munster forgot one thing unfortunately that makes all these surveys wrong. Most of the stock was bought by street resellers in huge numbers. Another thing I know for sure, 3G model was sold out the opening day at 22:00 NYC. I seriously doubt Apple being sold out in 5 hours all over country, another marketing trick. Good job!

Austinhotrod

Apple is falsely advertising in its stores that they are receiving shipments “ever day” (false) and that you can speak to an associate to see how to get one tomorrow (also false). I went in to one Austin store yesterday, and they hadn’t gotten a shipment. Today they said they didn’t get one at all yesterday and weren’t expecting one today. So why the lie about getting them every day? And you can’t get one tomorrow.

Totellitasitis

Apple says demand for iPad 2 is ‘amazing’

So is the demand for landfills to dump them in so people need to buy better quality things to prevent trash buildup!